[456]. Milman’s Edition, vol. iii. p. 311.
[457]. “That this Trinity (Monad or Good, Wisdom, Spirit or Energy) was not first of all a mere invention of Plato’s, but much ancienter than him, is plainly affirmed by Plotinus in these words,—‘That these doctrines are not new nor of yesterday, but have been very anciently delivered, though obscurely (the discourses now extant being but Explications of them) appears from Plato’s own writings; Parmenides before having insisted on them.’” Cudworth. Intel. Syst. p. 546.—See also Bishop Berkeley’s Siris, sections 341-365.
[458]. “The principle of every thing is more simple than the thing itself. Wherefore the sensible world was made from Intellect, or the intelligible; and before this must there needs be something more simple still. For many did not proceed from many, but this multiform thing Intellect proceeded from that which is not multiform but simple; as Number from Unity. If that which understands be many, or contain multitude in it, then that which contains no multitude, does not properly understand; and this is the first thing;—to understand is not the First; neither in Essence nor in Dignity; but the Second; a thing in order of nature, after the First Good, and springing up from thence, as that which is moved with desire towards it.”—Plotinus. Cudworth, p. 584.
[459]. “The First is above all manner of action: neither is it fit to attribute the architecture of the world to the First God, but rather to account him the Father of that God, who is the Artificer. The Second, to whom the energy of Intellection is attributed, is therefore properly called the Demiurgus, as the contriving Architect, in whom the Archetypal World is contained, and the First Pattern, or Paradigm of the Whole Universe. The Third is that which moveth about Mind or Intellect, the Light or Effulgency thereof, and its Print or Signature, which always dependeth upon it, and acteth according to it. This is that which reduces both the Fecundity of the First Simple Good, and the Architectonick Contrivance of the Second into Act and Energy. This is the Immediate and as it were Manuary Opificer of the whole world, that which actually Governs, Rules, and Presideth over all.”—Plotinus. ap. Cudw. p. 583.
[460]. “Since the introduction of the Greek or Chaldean Philosophy, the Jews were persuaded of the pre-existence, transmigration, and immortality of souls; and Providence was justified by a supposition, that they were confined in their earthly prisons to expiate the stains which they had contracted in a former state. But the degrees of purity and corruption are almost immeasurable. It might be fairly presumed that the most sublime and virtuous of human spirits was infused into the offspring of Mary and the Holy Ghost; that his abasement was the result of his voluntary choice; and that the object of his mission was to purify, not his own, but the sins of the world. On his return to his native skies he received the immense reward of his obedience; the everlasting kingdom of the Messiah, which had been darkly foretold by the prophets, under the carnal images of peace, of conquest, and of dominion. Omnipotence could enlarge the human faculties of Christ to the extent of his celestial office. In the language of antiquity, the title of God has not been severely confined to the first parent; and his incomparable minister, his only begotten son, might claim, without presumption, the religious, though secondary worship of a subject world.
“The seeds of the faith, which had slowly arisen in the rocky and ungrateful soil of Judea, were transplanted, in full maturity, to the happier climes of the Gentiles; and the strangers of Rome or Asia, who never beheld the manhood, were the more readily disposed to embrace the divinity of Christ. The polytheist and the philosopher, the Greek and the Barbarian, were alike accustomed to conceive a long succession, an infinite chain of angels or dæmons, or deities, or æons, or emanations, issuing from the throne of light. Nor could it seem strange or incredible, that the first of these æons, the Logos, or word of God, of the same substance with the Father, should descend upon earth, to deliver the human race from vice and error, and to conduct them in the path of life and immortality.”—Gibbon, vol. viii. p. 271.
[461]. Philo de Abrahamo. Le Clerc’s Supplement to Hammond, p. 168.
[462]. Cudworth, p. 590.
[463]. “It was in this mode of apprehending the Divine Being that the doctrine of the Trinity had its origin. The Logos of the first four centuries was in the view of the Fathers both an attribute or attributes of God, and a proper person. Their philosophy was, in general, that of the later Platonists, and they transferred from it into Christianity this mode of Conception. In treating of this fact, so strange, and one which will be so new to many of my readers, I will first quote a passage from Origen, the coincidence of which with the conceptions of Philo and the later Platonists is apparent. ‘Nor must we omit, that Christ is properly the Wisdom of God; and is therefore so denominated. For the wisdom of the God and Father of All has not its being in bare conceptions, analogous to the conceptions in human minds. But if any one be capable of forming an idea of an incorporeal being of diverse forms of thought, which comprehend the Logoi [the archetypal forms] of all things, a being indued with life, and having as it were a soul, he will know that the Wisdom of God, who is above every creature, pronounced rightly concerning herself; The Lord created me, the beginning, his way to his works.’”—Origen, Opp. iv. 39, 40,—quoted by Norton on the Trinity, p. 271-2.
[464]. Milman’s Gibbon, vol. iii. p. 313.